


Rhythm

by tetsurashian



Category: Free!, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Makoto-centric, Supernatural Elements, Telepathy, Wanderlust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-11
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-14 03:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4548846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetsurashian/pseuds/tetsurashian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>July twentieth, Makoto wakes up from his short coma in a Tokyo hospital with a month long memory blank, a newfound tic, and occasional voices in his head.</i>
</p>
<p>((alternatively, the one where Makoto gets mind powers and meets people able to understand while looking for the how and the why))</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rhythm

**Author's Note:**

> me on twitter on June 15: "im writing tachibana makoto into the mcu verse no one can stop me"
> 
> so yeah that happened DONT LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT

For twelve seconds, Makoto stares up at the clear blue sky in a daze. Slowly, he blinks, the white clouds hanging above him doubling and tripling and turning into _one, two, three--_

Makoto closes his eyes for a second - _just one second_ \- and opens them to a dimmed lighted room. There’s a steady beeping at his side and numbness to his limbs and his head is ten kinds of fuzzy.

A warm hand brushes his fringe and trails down his the side of his face to rest at his jaw and Makoto’s eyes flicker to the source. His mother gives him a brittle smile, “Oh, honey.”

“What do you think today’s date is, Tachibana-kun?” The doctor asks him later, after he’s more coherent and his throat doesn’t feel like something had died in there anymore. Makoto looks unsurely at the doctor, then at his parents who stick close to the side of his bed.

“June seventeen…?” He sees his parents’ faces crumble at the answer, so he can’t help but add, “I know that’s wrong, but I honestly don’t know the date anymore.”

His father replies quietly, “It’s the twentieth. Of July.”

The doctor - Matsuda-sensei, the nametag reads - peers at the three of them with a bit of sympathy. “Tachibana-kun, do not remember anything in between?” Makoto swallows harshly, takes deep breaths, and clenches his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to panic, he shouldn’t panic, but. _But_.

“I- The sky. I woke up? I was on a field, I think. Near the road.” Makoto stares at his hands, and his right index finger twitches. “That’s. That’s all I can remember. Sorry.” He bites his lip when and quails under the doctor’s penetrating stare. He nervously taps his finger against his thigh.

_‘-contact the police. Officer Yamato would want to be updated. Poor kid, missing for weeks and suddenly appearing without--’_

Makoto snaps his head to the doctor’s tired face, “What?”

From beside him, his mother and father jump slightly in surprise. “Makoto?” His mom briefly tightens her grip on his hand, her face twisted in worry. _‘Did he remember something? Oh, my baby, what happened, why him, I don’t like this-’_

_‘-ank goodness he’s awake, I don’t know what else I could’ve told the twins-’_ His dad’s lips twist into an attempt at a comforting grin. “You don’t have to force yourself, son. Just concentrate in recovering, okay? You’ll need all your energy for when Ren and Ran visit.”

_‘-a nervous tic? Will have to find out if he’s had it since before his disappearance-’_

Makoto barely is able to hide his full body flinch, and his gaze drops down back to his lap, ignoring the increasing number of voices suddenly buzzing in his head. He notices his finger is still tapping and it’s harder than it should be to make it stop.

When it does, everything abruptly turns quiet. Makoto’s insides suddenly felt cold.

 

June seventeenth, 10:42 am, Makoto sends a text to his classmate. _‘I’ll be late to the study group, sorry! m(_ _)m’_ Five minutes later, his classmate replies, but the text is never opened.

June eighteenth, 11:23 pm, his roommate reports to the police after realizing no one’s seen or has had contact with Makoto for more than a full day, and that he never showed up at work last night. There’s mild panic in their apartment building, most of its tenants college students as well and well acquainted with Makoto and his friendly nature. Statements are taken, Makoto’s parents are called. His mobile phone is found in the mailbox with 51 missed calls and 78 unread texts from his various worried city-friends.

By the next evening, everyone in N University has heard of the disappearance and Makoto’s face is shown in the Tokyo evening news as the latest Missing Persons case.

Haru almost flies back to Japan after getting the news, Rin not too far behind, their training be damned, but it only takes a firm reminder of what Makoto would want that they sullenly stay in Australia. If they swim more aggressively than normal, well. Nagisa’s smiles are almost manic some days, Rei tries hard to keep his concentration to the swimming club and cram school, and Gou writes a dozen variations of training menus in a week - no one comments on the fact that almost half of them are for backswimmers.

A month later - July seventeenth, 1:10 pm - a truck driver notices a body lying on a field beside the road, miles outside of Kyoto.

July twentieth, Makoto wakes up from his short coma in a Tokyo hospital with a month long memory blank, a newfound tic, and occasional voices in his head.

 

There’s a lot of crying the next few days. Not from him, no, but from Makoto’s friends and classmates and practically everyone he knew by name. Haru and Rin insist on a video conference, and it takes Makoto himself telling them not to that they don’t grab the next flight to Tokyo. Nagisa, Rei, and Gou visit him for the entire weekend and Nagisa bawls for a good ten minutes into Makoto’s chest while Rei and Gou try and fail to hide their own teary relief. The Mikoshiba brothers and Nitori stop by as well, and he doesn’t personally see Sousuke, but Makoto appreciates the “Get Well” flowers and card he sends to him. Even Kisumi and Hayato spends a few hours with him, Hayato clinging to his side on the hospital bed.

The finger-tapping tic stays. It’s harder to suppress the more people there are with him, the more uncomfortable and unsure he is, and Makoto opts to ignore the wisps of other people’s thoughts penetrating his mind because it’s wrong.

And the worst part is, he’s not even sure the little bit of telepathy - and wasn’t that _insane_? - is the only thing he can do.

Because when the local news tries to get his story while the police are gone, he desperately thinks _“Go away, go away, go away,_ ” as his finger taps in the rhythm of his thoughts and _they do_. They leave him alone without a word of prompting before a nurse catches them and pushes them out of the hospital. Because when he wants to pull the curtains over the window but he’s too tired to sit up much less stand, instead of pressing the button for his nurse - because why bother her with such a trivial thing? He can live with open curtains - he trails his eyes across the window, from the where the curtain is bunched up on one side to the other end, his finger slowly tapping _one-- two--- three----_ \- until the curtains slide and spread over to cover the sunlight seeping through. Because when one day he idly wishes for the clownfish keychain he got all those years ago - for no reason other than nostalgia and a bit of comfort - his finger taps once against his bed, then taps again but this time against orange plastic with white chipped paint.

Makoto wants to cry, sometimes. The blinding headache he keeps getting is only part of the reason why.

 

Physically, the doctors find nothing wrong with him beyond scrapes and bruises that fade within the first week of his hospitalization. As for his mental state, they give him a list of reputable therapists around the area to help him with the trauma. What trauma, Makoto wonders, when he doesn’t even remember anything? His parents opt to get a few sessions of family counselling however, because it’s been a long tiring month for the rest of them.

Makoto tries to get his life back on track again. But everyone he knows and doesn’t know look at him with new eyes, as if they can see that he’s come back to them _changed_. Or that if they look hard enough, they can find what exactly that change _is_.

The finger tapping continues. He doesn’t even realize he’s doing it most times, doesn’t realize that suddenly an eraser is in his hand when it was in his pencil case just moments ago, or that he’s flicking through tv channels while the remote is on the coffee table, its channel button being pressed every second by an invisible force.

He tries -- he tries hard to stop. It worries him how seamlessly it integrates to his life, as if he’s been telepathic and telekinetic and tele- _god knows what_ for all his life, and he loses sleep on trying to figure out how or why.

Then. Then Makoto saves a girl from getting run over by a car -- he sees the Toyota not slowing down and the girl crossing the street with headphones over her ears and oblvious. With his heart in his throat, he only taps his thigh once and the girl goes flying back to the sidewalk, the car narrowly missing her. But oh god, he’s put too much force and people scramble out of the way, Makoto included, as she screams and lands hard against the concrete with a sickening crack. Makoto shakes, feels bile creeping at the back of his throat, when he distantly feels the muted pain of a broken arm sliver into his mind, and backs away from the forming crowd around the crying girl. Turns his back and -- running was too suspicious and too guilty. He walks.

 

The can of green tea gets stuck in the vending machine. Makoto sighs heavily, tiredly, and taps his finger against the machine’s glass once, and catches the can that appears before the second tap even starts.

The park is empty at this time of day, after most people’s lunch break and before school is dismissed, so Makoto doesn’t bother with appearances and slumps down on a nearby bench. He’s been staring at the can in his hands for a good few minutes when someone approaches him and says a hesitant, “Excuse me?” in a stilted voice.

Makoto looks up and blinks at the sight of an obvious foreigner. Not that blonde hair was a rarity in Tokyo or even Japan for that matter, with what fashion trends are these days, but the boy’s features were typical of the actors in the American shows Ran has taken a liking to.

“Yes?” Makoto offers the boy - around Momo’s age, he reckons - what he hopes is a warm smile. “Can I help you?”

The boy simultaneously brightens and relaxes in relief. “Yes! Yes.” He gestures helplessly. “I’m lost, I think. And my phone ran out of battery. My mom is probably at her wits end by now. So I was wondering, if you don’t mind, can I borrow your phone? If you have one? Or, uhm, lend me change to use the payphones? I don’t know.”

Makoto already has his phone out before the kid finishes speaking, and nods at him. “It’s fine. Here.” He hands it to him, and maybe hopes that the kid wasn’t scamming him and about to run off with it.

The kid grins at him, and digs thru his pockets for a piece of paper - his mother’s phone number, Makoto figures. “Thank you so much, dude. Like, I thought I was gonna be lost here forever. There’s so many people.”

“I know how that feels,” Makoto chuckles, his mood lighter than it’s been in a while. “I came from a small town, so moving here was a big change for me.”

“Me too!” The kid beams, glancing up at him as he inputs the number and presses call. “I’m from one of those towns where everyone knows everyone, back in America. We literally have like, less than five stoplights. Three? Four? You get the idea-- Hey mom! It’s me--”

Makoto politely tunes out the conversation until the kid hangs up and pokes Makoto with his phone. “Here you go. You’re a lifesaver, like, seriously.” The kid plops down beside him. “My mom’s on her way, she told me to stay put in case I get lost even more, haha.”

They chat for a few more minutes, and Makoto is, as bad as it sounds, grateful to have a conversation with someone who isn’t walking eggshells around him, as most of his acquaintances are prone to these days. Then, the kid says something that makes Makoto’s mind stop to a halt.

“Your English is really good, by the way. Have you been to America before? I can’t even hear an accent!”

“No,” Makoto manages to croak out without giving much away, “No, I. I haven’t.”

When the kid’s mother appears and he waves his goodbye, he stares at his finger and wonders if he’s been tapping the now lukewarm can from the moment the kid opened his mouth.

 

He mentions the idea to his father first. “I think I need a break.” He says quietly.

His dad is silent for only a moment. “Whatever you need, son.” The warmth in his tone carries on through the phone, hiding most of the worry, and Makoto feels both guilty and relieved at the same time. “Just make sure to call, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you.”

Makoto sends his university and his part-time job his withdrawal and resignation notices respectively, and they are understanding and sympathetic. He packs one suitcase - half filled with clothes and the other half with sentiment - and sends the rest of his stuff back to Iwatobi without him. He pays his half of the rent for the next month to give his roommate time to find someone to take his place and makes sure his part of the apartment is spotless before handing his key to the landlady.

Kyoto doesn’t spur a forgotten memory, but Makoto’s accepted over the past few weeks that it’s unlikely he’ll ever regain his missing time. For now he has 50,000 yen to his name and the whole world to find himself again.

 

He ends up wandering through Japan, never spending more than a few days in one place, sleeping in internet and manga cafes, bathing in public bathhouses, stretching his yen as much as he could. It’s- it’s rough. He’s unaccustomed to living out of a suitcase, with no set path, much less set destination but he manages. He calls his family at least three times a week, texts and emails his friends, and masters how to give answers that eases their worries without giving anything away. Rin calls him crazy in his email, but Makoto just laughs because it’s followed by Rin offering anything and everything Makoto asks, short of Australia itself. In the same email, Haru links him places that offer great mackerel for cheap. Makoto sends back pictures of the places he does stop by at.

He doesn’t go back to Tokyo, and only stops by Iwatobi for Christmas, and no one forces the issue. Makoto isn’t sure what they’re thinking, but he’s grateful all the same.

His finger keeps tapping away, strangers’ thoughts like constant radio static at the back of his mind. He still has to catch himself from suddenly willing something into his hands, but he’s getting better at it, these days. The reminder that it comes from somewhere and it is good as theft is what keeps him from summoning the couple thousand yen he needs to be able to indulge in a hotel room for even just one night. And when money is diminishing more than he’s comfortable with, Makoto performs tricks.

It’s easy to pretend that it’s street magic. A deck of cards, occasionally a yen coin or two, and a spot in the local park, sometimes sidewalk, at its peak hours. He learns how to reverse his summoning trick so that the card in his hand disappears from him and appears in the pants pocket of an audience six feet away from him instead. He flips a coin and makes it freeze in midair, spins it slowly, and makes disappear from under a piece of cloth. He has volunteers think of phrases, number sequences, objects, and accurately throws it back at them. It’s not always a success, people are absorbed in their own lives and there are always skeptics, but each hundred yen people drop in his admittedly pathetic tip box is a help.

He’s not- He’s _okay_. But sometimes he wonders why he’s doing this when he could be at home with his family and best friends or studying in Tokyo, and sometimes the headaches are terrible and unaffected by over the counter painkillers that Makoto just stops buying them to save money, and sometimes he can’t bear look at his bank balance because his parents are still paying for his phone bill and depositing 5,000 yen every other week like he’s still sixteen and getting allowance and that if he asks for more his parents won’t hesitate to double or triple the amount. And sometimes he just wants everything to go back to the way they were before- _Before_.

Because he feels like his world is expanding each day, more and more voices crowd in his head and he feels emotions that aren’t his- He doesn’t have to lift a hand to do anything anymore, a thought is almost always just enough to turn on the shower or to keep his suitcase rolling behind him- He can rob a bank with a tap of his finger and his willpower if he were so inclined and with little morality left. And his finger. God, his finger. Won’t. Stop. Tapping.

(Frankly, Makoto’s amazed he hasn’t completely lost his mind yet.)

 

Makoto is in Nagoya for the third time in four months, when he spots a familiar face in the crowd. He falters for a second but the other man just nods and waits for Makoto to finish his mini-show for the day.

“Sousuke.” He smiles unsurely at the dark haired man, somehow taller and broader than he had seen him last. Yamazaki Sousuke stares back at him with a searching look, and Makoto doesn’t last a second in holding his gaze.

“Makoto. It’s been a while.” Sousuke looks sharp and professional in his sleek black suit and tie compared to Makoto’s worn jeans and flannel shirt. “There’s a coffee shop just a bit away.”

Makoto acknowledges the invitation for what it is and nods. “Let me just-” He gestures to his suitcase and box of tips and props.

“No rush.”

The coffee is hot and burns his tongue at first sip, as it always does. There’s a flicker of amusement that crosses Sousuke’s face at Makoto’s grimace, and for a moment Makoto feels like he’s in high school again, nevermind that he and Sousuke were never particularly close beyond commiserating over being the ones left behind by their best friends whose gazes are locked at Olympian gold.

“I never pegged you as a magic man,” Sousuke lightly says, “What happened to university?”

Makoto shrugs and gives Sousuke an attempt at a smile. “Things change,” He murmurs and takes a more careful sip of coffee. “ _I_ needed change.”

Sousuke nods, as if he understands, and maybe he does. Makoto doesn’t know what he’s been up to since graduation, so he asks.

“Government work,” Sousuke wryly grins, “Not what people expected of me, I suppose, but the opportunity presented itself and well.” He waves his hand at himself, at his nondescript black suit. Makoto doesn’t need to focus on the other’s thoughts to know that what he said is true, so he accepts it in face value.

They share a companionable silence, chatter between them scarce as they finish their drinks. When Makoto swallows the last dregs of his coffee does Sousuke pull out a white envelope and settle it on the table between them.

“I hope you find your answers.” Sosuke meets his eyes and this time, Makoto is able to hold it. He nods at the envelope. “Compliments of the Professor. Be careful. My… division, has its eye on you.”

“Is that good, or bad?” Makoto says more to himself than to the other. Sosuke merely rests his hand on Makoto’s shoulder for a brief moment before making his way out of the cafe.

‘ _To: M. Tachibana_ ,’ it says on the envelope in elegant romanji, right under an embossed stylized X.

 

Monroe Ororo - or Ororo Monroe, Makoto should probably say now that he’s on Western soil - greets him with a sign with his name on it and a welcoming smile. He returns it with his own and gives her a short but respectful bow.

“Welcome to New York, Makoto Tachibana.” Monroe shakes his hand and they make their way out of the airport. “I hope the flight was pleasant?”

The flight was long and tiring, being surrounded by people feeling anxious or sick or just plain exhausted, but Makoto braved through it well enough. For his first flight to overseas, it could’ve gone worse. “It was fine, Miss Monroe,” is what he says.

“Please, call me Ororo or Storm.”

New York City is… busy. It reminds Makoto of Tokyo, with people always on the go and the towering buildings all around. He’s a little bit amazed, to be honest, especially when he remembers that the city was attacked by an outside army not too long ago, and that sleek, gleaming building visible from outside his car window was the epicenter of it.

“Does Japan have anything like Stark’s tower?” Ororo amusedly asks, gesturing at the tower marked with just an A.

“We try, but there’s nothing quite like _that_ ,” He says, maybe a little too awed, and Ororo cracks a smile.

It takes them about an hour or more to arrive at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. The entire property is more impressive than the pictures Makoto had Googled, and livelier, as well. He allows himself to up his telepathic sensitivity a little with two firm taps of his finger, and then he could distinguish the various minds and personalities around and within the establishment.

Then a thought - a voice - comes to the forefront of his mind and warmly says, ‘ _Welcome to my school, Mr. Tachibana_.’

Makoto jumps a little, and unsurely thinks back, ‘Uhm, hello. Thank you for having me.’

_‘It was my pleasure. Please, come inside. Ororo will lead you to my office.’_

Professor Xavier is everything and nothing like Makoto expects, from what little he’s gathered from the internet. He looks like a harmless old man, a bit like Makoto’s grandfather, but something about him tickles at Makoto’s mind, and it’s not just the telepathy.

“I do apologize for making you come all the way out here, Mr. Tachibana.” The Professor says, offering Makoto a cup of tea which he gladly takes. “I hope it wasn’t presumptuous of me to have sent you the plane ticket.”

“No, it’s fine.” He smiles shyly, “You didn’t have to, but I appreciate it. Thank you. And uh, you can call me Makoto, Mr. Tachibana is a bit of a mouthful.”

“Makoto, then.” Professor Xavier smiles. “I assume you’ve figured out what my school is for?”

Makoto shrugs and wryly says, “Well, girls going through solid walls isn’t exactly a normal occurrence in other schools, is it?”

Professor Xavier explains to him mutations, mutants, and the X-gene, then tells him about how he has a way to identify mutants, and how Makoto was different in a way that wasn’t quite normal, but wasn’t quite mutant, and hadn’t that caught the Professor’s attention immediately. Makoto absorbs that last bit of information quietly, and he can’t bring himself to be surprised by it, just resigned.

He meets Hank McCoy, or Beast as he’s so aptly named, and his blood is taken for some tests.

“Not a mutant,” Hank announces later. He straightens his glasses before peering at the papers in his hands and gives Professor Xavier a look. “No trace of the X-gene.”

Mutant or not, however, the Professor still welcomes him to stay in the mansion for as long as he wishes. Makoto gratefully accepts the offer and finds himself spending most of his days under Professor Xavier’s and Jean Grey’s tutelages. He develops friendships with the students in the school as well, even if he was slightly older than many of them, and a sort of camaraderie forms between him and the X-Men. He hasn’t forgotten about the people he’d left in Japan, of course - the Professor is generous enough to let him make international calls on the school phone and use the school’s internet without paying a cent. He sends postcards and little gifts - it doesn’t completely ease his guilt of having missed holidays and birthdays, but it helps.

Makoto, if he so wanted to, could settle here. But between playing teleport tag with Kurt and tutoring Bobby in Literature, he feels unrest and his gaze moves beyond the gates of the institute.

“Feeling the wanderlust, kid?” Logan asks once, when Makoto is out in the garden one early afternoon.

He shrugs. “I don’t…” Makoto slumps and sighs, “It was just a few months.” Logan keeps quiet, but Makoto feels the understanding keenly.

“You’re not obligated to stay,” Professor Xavier tells him, a month into his stay, while they play chess. Makoto’s getting thoroughly destroyed, of course, but it’s a good exercise in control - he’s not allowed to physically touch the pieces and has to keep himself from projecting his thoughts to the other telepath. He still has to tap his finger, but no one has commented on it even after all this time.

“...I know,” is all he says. The Professor gives him a sympathetic smile, rolling out a wave that’s parts reassuring, understanding, and welcoming.

It’s not that Makoto wants to always be travelling. It’s just that despite the mastery he’s gaining over his newfound powers, the question of how and why still plagues him. That despite that he’s accepted the fact that that missing month will likely always be _missing_ , knowing something is better than knowing nothing at all.

And over all that, he wants - he needs a purpose. It’s probably a bad thing to rely on a reason for existing but all his life he’s had a set responsibility whether it’s making sure Haru doesn’t jump into a public fountain or taking care of the twins while his parents are out or swimming fast and furious in a relay - he always knows what he’s expected to do with what little talent he has. He’s - lost, for a lack of a better term, and he’s been lost since waking up in that hospital and finding out the finger tapping was a sign of something more.

Then in early February, a SHIELD agent appears on their doorstep.


End file.
